Thursday, September 3, 2015

CHESTER, CHESTERFIELD COUNTY VA - ON OCTOBER 23, 2014, A FRIEND'S PIT BULL VICIOUSLY ATTACKED A 9-YEAR-OLD GIRL AND HER MOTHER AS SHE ATTEMPTED TO SAVE HER DAUGHTER'S LIFE- THE PIT OWNER WAS TRIED AND CONVICTED AND IT WAS SHOWN THAT HER PIT HAD PREVIOUSLY ATTACKED HER OWN DAUGHTER AND ANOTHER FAMILY MEMBER BUT SHE CHOSE TO KEEP IT !!!

PIT BULL OWNER - REBECCA LYNN POOLE - 45When Zeus, a 68-pound PIT BULL, was viciously mauling 9-year-old Zora Marion last fall, tearing into the girl's flesh, she at one point looked back at her mother and said, “I’m going to die.”

Her mother, Amy, said “No you’re not!” as she tried to distract the dog to allow her daughter to escape. “She told me to run,” Zora wrote in a letter about her ordeal to Chesterfield County Circuit Court. As her mother got the dog’s attention, incurring an attack on herself, theChesterfield girl ran to a nearby office and pleaded for help.

“Then I lay on the sidewalk waiting for the ambulance to get there,” Zora wrote. “I saw a piece of skin flopping out of my mom’s leg. I accidentally saw my arm and it looked awful. I was terrified I wasn’t going to see my family again.”

A little more than 10 months after the Oct. 23 attack and a half-dozen surgeries to repair Zora’s “horrific” wounds, the dog’s owner, Rebecca Lynn Poole, 45, was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison with all but six months suspended for wantonly failing to control her dog in a reckless disregard for human life. She pleaded no contest to the offense in May.

Poole’s conviction for a Class 6 felony under Virginia’s vicious dog statute is believed to be one of the few statewide since the General Assembly in March 2006 passed legislation that makes dog attacks resulting in serious injury a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $2,500 fine.

The law was enacted in response to the March 8, 2005, death of an 82-year-old Spotsylvania County woman who was attacked and killed by her neighbor’s three pit bulls.

Chesterfield Circuit Judge David E. Johnson, who viewed photos of the victims’ wounds, compared their severity to wounds suffered by a shooting victim. “These wounds could have come from a gunshot,” he said at one point.

“The defendant knew that this dog was dangerous,” Johnson said, noting the animal had previously attacked two of the defendant’s family members but she still kept the dog.”This defendant knew the dog might attack.”

The judge also remarked on the so-called leash to which the dog was attached while in Poole’s care — a frayed and worn 36-foot long contraption of rope and three dog leashes tied together. The dog broke free and attacked the girl as Poole apparently tried to hold down the end of the leash with her foot. The leash was not anchored or tethered.

Poole and the two victims, who once lived in the same household, drove to the Ample Storage Center at 4000 Hamlin Creek Parkway in Chester. Amy Marion needed a ride to pick up her daughter from school, and Poole obliged. “But she indicated she had to make a stop at the storage unit.”

While mother and daughter stayed in Poole’s vehicle, Poole got out with the dog and walked to the storage area.

Defense attorney Alex Taylor said Poole, as a “matter of precaution,” intentionally parked 350-400 feet away from where she would be working should the dog become “unpredictable.”

But at one point, Fierro said, Zora had to use the restroom and got out of the vehicle to walk to the storage center office. The dog broke free from the leash and immediately attacked the girl, and as her mother “attempted to remove the dog from her daughter, the dog attacked her as well.”

Terri Martin, the storage center manager, testified she grabbed hold of Zeus and screamed his name, and he let go. She said she was surprised by the attack, because she regarded Zeus as a “very loving dog.”

Bleeding profusely, Zora and her mother were brought into the storage center’s office until paramedics arrived.

The leash “looked like it would come apart at any minute, and it did,” Fierro said. “When Ms. Poole was interviewed later, she indicated that she was controlling the dog by simply stepping on the leash.”

Fierro said the dog attacked Poole’s daughter in March 2013 and an adult family member in May of that year. Chesterfield animal control quarantined the dog for 10 days after both attacks.

“Ms. Poole had been put on notice that this animal was dangerous,” Fierro said, although it had not been formally adjudicated as a dangerous animal.

After the attack, Zora was hospitalized five days and her mother six, and both have undergone numerous surgical procedures. Zora suffered bites to her arm, leg, right side, back side and buttocks and received over 50 stitches. Her mother suffered bites to he right side, arm, legs, hip and thigh, Fierro said.

Drainage tubes had to be installed in both victims “for the wounds that couldn’t be closed up,” and both suffered permanent scarring, Fierro said.

Zora “went through months of having the wounds cleaned and preparing for additional procedures,” the prosecutor said.

“When I look at my scars, I think to myself, why?” Zora wrote in her victim impact statement. Neither mother or daughter attended Thursday’s sentencing hearing.

Poole, sometimes breaking into tears, repeatedly apologized for her dog’s attack, insisting that she “took precautions” so it wouldn’t harm anyone.

She immediately turned the dog over to animal control and it was euthanized.

2 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"Chesterfield animal control quarantined the dog for 10 days after both attacks.'Ms. Poole had been put on notice that this animal was dangerous,' Fierro said, although it had not been formally adjudicated as a dangerous animal."

Another Animal Control FAIL!

THIS IS WHY WE NEED BSL! THIS IS WHY PIT BULLS, ALL PIT BULLS, NEED TO BE DECLARED DANGEROUS.

As soon as they attack once, be it another animal, or a human, THAT'S IT! GAME OVER! DIRT NAP!

We are letting the crazy nutters run the funny farm. They should not be in power and control of dangerous animals.

THE CODE OF ALABAMA - 1975

Title: 6 CIVIL PRACTICE

Section 6-5-120

Defined.

A "nuisance" is anything that works hurt, inconvenience or damage to another. The fact that the act done may otherwise be lawful does not keep it from being a nuisance. The inconvenience complained of must not be fanciful or such as would affect only one of a fastidious taste, but it should be such as would affect an ordinary reasonable man.

(Code 1907, §5193; Code 1923, §9271; Code 1940, T. 7, §1081

Section 6-5-121

_____________________

Distinction between public and private nuisances; right of action generally.

Nuisances are either public or private. A public nuisance is one which damages all persons who come within the sphere of its operation, though it may vary in its effects on individuals. A private nuisance is one limited in its injurious effects to one or a few individuals. Generally, a public nuisance gives no right of action to any individual, but must be abated by a process instituted in the name of the state. A private nuisance gives a right of action to the person injured.

Use of force in defense of a person.

(a) A person is justified in using physical force upon another person in order to defend himself or herself or a third person from what he or she reasonably believes to be the use or imminent use of unlawful physical force by that other person, and he or she may use a degree of force which he or she reasonably believes to be necessary for the purpose. A person may use deadly physical force, and is legally presumed to be justified in using deadly physical force in self-defense or the defense of another person pursuant to subdivision (4), if the person reasonably believes that another person is:

(1) Using or about to use unlawful deadly physical force.

(2) Using or about to use physical force against an occupant of a dwelling while committing or attempting to commit a burglary of such dwelling.

(3) Committing or about to commit a kidnapping in any degree, assault in the first or second degree, burglary in any degree, robbery in any degree, forcible rape, or forcible sodomy.

(4) In the process of unlawfully and forcefully entering, or has unlawfully and forcefully entered, a dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle, or federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is in the process of sabotaging or attempting to sabotage a federally licensed nuclear power facility, or is attempting to remove, or has forcefully removed, a person against his or her will from any dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle when the person has a legal right to be there, and provided that the person using the deadly physical force knows or has reason to believe that an unlawful and forcible entry or unlawful and forcible act is occurring. The legal presumption that a person using deadly physical force is justified to do so pursuant to this subdivision does not apply if:

a. The person against whom the defensive force is used has the right to be in or is a lawful resident of the dwelling, residence, or vehicle, such as an owner or lessee, and there is not an injunction for protection from domestic violence or a written pretrial supervision order of no contact against that person;

b. The person sought to be removed is a child or grandchild, or is otherwise in the lawful custody or under the lawful guardianship of, the person against whom the defensive force is used;

c. The person who uses defensive force is engaged in an unlawful activity or is using the dwelling, residence, or occupied vehicle to further an unlawful activity; or

d. The person against whom the defensive force is used is a law enforcement officer acting in the performance of his or her official duties.

(b) A person who is justified under subsection (a) in using physical force, including deadly physical force, and who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and is in any place where he or she has the right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground.

(c) Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection (a), a person is not justified in using physical force if:

(1) With intent to cause physical injury or death to another person, he or she provoked the use of unlawful physical force by such other person.

(2) He or she was the initial aggressor, except that his or her use of physical force upon another person under the circumstances is justifiable if he or she withdraws from the encounter and effectively communicates to the other person his or her intent to do so, but the latter person nevertheless continues or threatens the use of unlawful physical force.

(3) The physical force involved was the product of a combat by agreement not specifically authorized by law.

(d) A person who uses force, including deadly physical force, as justified and permitted in this section is immune from criminal prosecution and civil action for the use of such force, unless the force was determined to be unlawful.

(e) A law enforcement agency may use standard procedures for investigating the use of force described in subsection (a), but the agency may not arrest the person for using force unless it determines that there is probable cause that the force used was unlawful.